A Box of Me
by doomkiri
Summary: Dietrich finds a strange box in Isaak's study... Some form of story, one-shot IXD no lemons! I much prefer bananas, the square fruit.


**A Box of Me**

Author's note: Well hello. Happy first story to me. I don't know what to make of it, but I got so down writing it that it seemed necessary to lighten it up just a little bit. One-shot, IXD. Enjoy, or don't.

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Isaak's study. A dark room where one couldn't tell if there were walls or not. The size of it only the enigmatic magician knew for sure. To Dietrich, who had sat himself down on some sort of wooden chair (with probably exquisitely decorated cushioning he couldn't see), the study was a room in which he could be one with the darkness. It was warm and suffocating, as if von Kampfer had especially created it to detest anything illuminating light.

A single candle flickered in a ten centimeter radius. The poor thing was about to die. Dietrich von Lohengrin set it on the very edge of Isaak's desk, and saw the mahogany hue of the wood he had set the candle upon. Within that small glow of light, that was the only thing he saw, apart from the corner of a small box about the size of his palm. It was a dark coloured wood which had soaked up hundreds of years worth of cigarillo smoke. Von Lohengrin turned up one corner of his lips. The presence of that scent meant it was the property of the magical vampire forevermore; nothing could get that smell out for love or money.

He brushed his gloved fingertips over the edges of this mysterious box, running them over swirling grooves carved into the lid. It seemed to warm itself to his touch. Did it like him? The puppet master spread out his fingers and delicately spirited the box off the desk. Heavy, and seeming to have a life of its own, the box became warmer as Dietrich drew it closer to his face. His eyes were wide open in wonder, and with his pupils dilated due to the dying light, his eyes looked as if they would devour this magical thing into eternity.

The candle died.

Just Dietrich, darkness, and a thing of the magus Isaak Fernando von Kampfer. Von Lohengrin felt for some sort of clasp or handle with which to open the box. The fact that it was Isaak's, and was probably something dangerous to Terrans, did not faze the puppet master at all. After all, danger lived for him, as did death, and darkness, despair too. As his deft hands found a clasp, the box seemed to tremble with excitement. Perhaps it had been waiting the hundreds of years with the magician Isaak to find the devil itself.

The clasp gave, and Dietrich brushed open this treasure, which was quite a bit warmer than the dark study itself. For a few seconds the scent of hundreds of years was released; olfactory memories of paprika maybe? A touch of death lilies, the fragrance of rain in the deserts, of old books in a library and a touch of cologne, all tinged with a sort of loneliness. Scents that filled in the darkness and sought to smother the young mortal puppet master in his seat. Then the music started.

It was a piano piece as far as Von Lohengrin could tell, but its name had eluded him. Isaak had played this to him once, such a long time ago, and the memory of his playing mingled with the nostalgic fragrances. Dietrich was struck with a sense of loneliness, forlorn as he realized that no matter how animated the darkness around him was, he was alone in the room. He had been very much alone in his life. The times when he tried to stay with the magician, one or another was called upon to some far flung corner of the habitable world for weeks and months on end. Without the very presence of the magus himself, Dietrich's dark heart was a wretched thing.

Piano notes kept swimming in the air of memories, and in the middle of it all, enveloped in darkness sat the puppet master. He began to shake violently, still clutching the memory box. As he shook it grew colder and colder, until suddenly a small light within the inside of the lid flickered on. It was some sort of purple light, sharp in the blackness surrounding it and illuminating the angelic face of Dietrich above it. He trembled. Now that there was light it was possible to turn his eyes just a little bit down to look inside…

"I thought I had told you to be a bit more careful when you find yourself among my possessions."

Dietrich let out a small gasp, and straightened up his back. A warm, gloved hand found his shoulder.

"Aah, that one! I've had it for so long. But, I do say…" Dietrich turned around to where he heard the magician's voice, "…this is the first time I've heard it play that song." The magician put his face near the light, and smiled toward his protégé.

"I remember you played this to me once..." Dietrich bowed his face down, "but its name has escaped me."

The magician smiled, and breathed in the heady scent of memories and cigarillo smoke. "It's Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Remember when you wanted to know what love and loss felt like?" Isaak squeezed Dietrich's shoulder. "After that you were almost smothering me to death. Aah…"

The magician had somehow slipped into the seat, so that he had Dietrich pressed firmly into his side. He cupped his hand around the puppet master's, which were holding the musical box. It became warm in Dietrich's hands once again, and out of the depths of it arose a small silver flower, each petal of it opening and closing slowly to the sonata. Dietrich felt the magician's face press against the side of his head.

"Do you like it?"

"It's beautiful…" Dietrich let out a breath into the purpled darkness. The light from the box was mightier than the deceased candle.

"You've been thinking again, haven't you? You know, it usually has a white light. And plays some unnamed tune from a forgotten place that was centuries ago." Isaak squeezed Dietrich a little closer, curious for his response.

"Oh. I must have broken it then." The puppet master's voice was dejected, and the breath's he let out into the darkness, though soft, were strained with some sort of sadness.

A chuckle from the magician. "I thought you would be smart enough to figure out what it is. And you know it's not broken."

Dietrich turned to face Isaak, each tilting their face to see the other in the eye.

"Well? Aren't you going to guess? It's been waiting a long time especially for you…" Dietrich's eyes widened. "I never thought that someone else would come along and feed it."

Von Lohengrin turned to gaze at the sound-emitting box in his and Isaak's hands. How it could have been 'unfed' beforehand eluded him. "I don't see how it could have been empty. It was full of memories."

Isaak smiled in the purple. "Now you have it. When I had completed this, I thought it would not serve more than perhaps to amuse me for a few brief moments. It was meant to be just…there." The fact that Isaak was lost for words was amusing to Dietrich, and he let out a soft laugh in the warm air.

"I take it that you weren't anticipating this to be so…so…" Dietrich was lost for words too. Isaak grinned and pulled him to his ribs.

"I don't know how, but every time I opened it, I felt a part of myself die. It was the same light, the same flower, the same song each time I opened it, nothing more than a mere decoration. But it always seemed to wrench at me; whenever I touched it, it seemed alive, and so I would open it knowing already how utterly miserable I would be."

Dietrich was somewhat surprised at the magician's revelations. He was sure that the old Methuselah had outlived feelings a long time ago. "I still don't understand it…"

"Hmm…It is a very…fussy thing I have made. It took away from my mind so many memories, but only ones which made me feel…somewhat, good. Aah, that cologne you can smell right now, that belonged to a William Walter Wordsworth, when we attended university in Londinium together. You might have heard of him, he's a priest with the Vatican now. The spicy smell, paprika, I can remember now when I tasted it the first time…I felt so alive…"

Isaak drifted into silence. The box had been set down on the desk, and it was now silent. The flower had been stopped mid-opening, and the purple light was slowly fading into black. By this point Dietrich was in Isaak's lap, his soft brown hair being stroked by the magician's hand. Blackness slowly returned and the conversation resumed in the welcoming dark.

"Where was I…Oh yes. It devoured my life every time I answered it. Without fail, systematically stealing all the memories for which I had some pleasure in owning. Especially, it loved all of my memories of you. All of them."

The puppet master grew alarmed. A sentient box which was addicted to him was a rather frightening thought. "I think I know it now…"

Isaak grinned in the dark. "So, tell me."

"That box took my most pleasurable moments with you for itself. It thinks it's you… No, it is you. It takes everything that makes you alive, and the only way to experience those moments again is to open it and let it eat you some more. It's fucking scary Isaak."

Von Kampfer had to chuckle at his protégé's language. "Yes, it is scary. Hmm, you said most pleasurable moments with me…For me it took everything; only that you opened it now am I able to experience my life again without dying inside. Not just the pleasant bits you know. All of my anguish, hatred, vengeance, lusts…all of it. It is trying to complete itself by also taking other people's memories of me. You know, when these lingering scents disappear, I will forget most of these memories again. It's such a pain trying to rebuild them…"

The darkness heard one of them sigh. "You know how you said it was waiting for me?"

"Oh yes. What is it?"

"Why would it be waiting for me especially?"

Isaak sputtered in the dark. He should have chosen his words more carefully. Well, it wouldn't hurt Dietrich anymore to scare him again. "Let's see what I can remember here…You know the last time I went away? To Carthage? Well, it had been an excruciatingly long time without you, and as I arrived back here, well, I thought it would be a good idea to wait for you in your quarters-"

"Why my rooms?-oh. Oh. Don't tell me. You opened the box…and now it wants to rape me."

Chuckles. "I'm afraid so. Aah…Please take it away from here Dietrich. Destroy it. I don't want to feed that thing ever again; I always draw the short stick whenever I do."

Dietrich slid off the magician's lap, and groped around the darkness for the box. "I'm going to throw it in the fireplace. I sure as hell don't want an Isaak box hitting on me…" He opened the door, and turned his head over his shoulder to the magician.

"I prefer the real thing…"

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**End: Enjoy the OOCness much? Leave whatever you please...**


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